As Rolling Stonereports, 20th Century Fox then announced in January 2016 that that release date would likely move back even further to Christmas 2018. Cameron has now given a new interview in which he suggests there’ll be an even longer wait.

“Well, 2018 is not happening,” he told the Toronto Star. “We haven’t announced a firm release date.”

He explained that the ambitious levels of the project are what is delaying production on the sequel, as he is planning on making all four of the planned films in the franchise at the same time. “What people have to understand is that this is a cadence of releases,” he explained. “So we’re not making Avatar 2, we’re making Avatar 2, 3, 4 and 5.

“It’s an epic undertaking. It’s not unlike building the Three Gorges dam. So I know where I’m going to be for the next eight years of my life. It’s not an unreasonable time frame if you think about it.”

He also said that the production has “pretty well designed on all our creatures and sets” and said the crew involved were “full tilt boogie right now”. “This is my day job and pretty soon we’ll be 24/7,” he said.

“It’s pretty exciting stuff. I wish I could share with the world. But we have to preserve a certain amount of showmanship and we’re going to draw that curtain when the time is right.”